Posts by Elizabeth Kong

There’s a new photo hanging on the side of Capital One Arena and the photographer is none other than Nicklas Backstrom.

Unveiled on Thursday, the billboard-sized photograph is an ad for Apple’s iPhone XS phone and is a twist on Apple’s “Shot with iPhone” campaign. Instead of crowd-sourcing ads from social media, Apple has enlisted NHL players to share their candid photos, taken with the iPhone XS.

The photo that Backstrom took is of Alex Ovechkin’s back, during what looks like warmups at Carolina’s PNC Arena.

Co-hosted by Canadian Ambassador to the US David MacNaughton and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, the reception celebrated the accomplishments of O’Ree, who was the first Black hockey player to compete in the NHL. O’Ree was recently inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018.

The event also announced pending legislation to award O’Ree with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Evgeny Kuznetsov giggled as he stretched, noticing the sign along the glass during warmups in Toronto last Thursday. The poster read Give ‘Em The Bird and featured Kuznetsov’s signature bird walk celebration.

Except, this was a next level sign. The arms on the sign actually flapped.

Not only did the sign catch Kuzy’s attention, but the rest of the hockey world too, as the posters went viral late last week. The sign and the Alex Ovechkin Hot Stick sequel were covered by NHL, NBC Sports, and TSN.

The maker of the signs, Julia Pettella, a Brock University goaltender, said she can’t believe the reaction her signs have gotten over the past couple of days.

It might be easy for fans to view hockey players as commodities. We put price tags on them and haggle over their value like they’re something able to be bought and sold, but the truth is that there is a real human person with real human emotions behind those business decisions. We had a reminder of that fact this week.

On Wednesday, the Capitals were practicing at the Leafs’ practice facility in Toronto when suddenly Devante Smith-Pelly was pulled off the ice and told that he had been placed on waivers.

The Washington Capitals spent Wednesday afternoon in Toronto taking in some hockey history with a tour of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Resource Centre before donating a Capitals Stanley Cup ring to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Players had the opportunity to check out a massive vault of game-used sticks, game footage, and jerseys stored at the D.K. (Doc) Seaman Hockey Resource Centre. Tom Wilson and Alex Ovechkin got the chance to check out the sticks used by hockey legends like Wayne Gretzky and Maurice “Rocket” Richard.

But one hockey artifact caught our eye, and from the looks of it, Ovi’s too!

On Tuesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arenasigned an agreement which will secure the $21 million of public funding that was promised to Fort Dupont in 2014 to make repairs to their current rink and build a new two-rink facility.

Brooks Orpik and Evgeny Kuznetsov have an unlikely friendship. While the two were both new to the Capitals, the veteran defenseman watched Family Feud with the Russian center.

Kuznetsov said Orpik, whom he nicknamed Batya or “Dad,” would teach him useful English phrases during that time, which is how he learned idioms such as “it is what it is” and “it’s not my first rodeo.”

And while Orpik was teaching Kuznetsov English phrases, Kuznetsov taught Orpik some not so useful Russian, too.

For instance, Thursday, ahead of the Capitals’ 5-1 win over the San Jose Sharks, Orpik showed off a Russian phrase he learned while Alex Ovechkin conducted a Russian-language interview with Sport-Express.